G
Guerre
I have an XP Pro desktop and a XP Tablet Edition laptop, both with all the
service packs and updates, along with Office 2003, also fully updated. The
PC's are unremarkable, relatively new, and with 1 gig RAM on the desktop and
512MB of RAM on the laptop. The only non-Microsoft thing I have running is
McAfee AV. About twice a day, particularly when I am reading a lot of
emails, opening and closing IE windows, or looking at documents, the system
will stop responding to mouse clicks for anywhere up to a couple of minutes.
The mouse pointer moves around fine. If I C-A-D to bring up the Task
Manager, and look at the tasks, the system is only 2 to 5% busy. The busy
tasks are usually explorer, taskmgr, and of course System Idle Process.
There is generally tons of Available Physical Memory indicated in Task
Manager -- hundreds of MB. On the laptop, the fan goes to full speed during
the hang. I don't keep lots of windows open at one time -- a max of maybe
five or six.
I know it's doing something during the hang, as the performance numbers
fluctuate. Eventually, the system returns to normal and I can get back to
work. I haven't been able to isolate a single specific offending act which
causes the problem -- it's not just Internet related, for example. I don't
use external servers or Exchange, and the hang is not taking place during
the background checking of email. Since the problem happens on my laptop
regardless of whether I am using the network at the office, my home DSL
network, or even working offline, I don't think it's a network issue. I
have a clean PC with no viruses or spyware -- I am a bit of an expert on
these so for the sake of argument take my word on this point.
This hang problem has affected both my systems from day one, and has not
improved or worsened across the various service packs and hot fixes which
have been applied.
My assumption has been that this is XP doing memory garbage collection.
Anybody have an opinion? Any suggestions would be appreciated, as this hang
has happened, for instance, during PowerPoint presentations and while I was
following along in Excel spreadsheets in conference calls.
Thanks,
Gary
service packs and updates, along with Office 2003, also fully updated. The
PC's are unremarkable, relatively new, and with 1 gig RAM on the desktop and
512MB of RAM on the laptop. The only non-Microsoft thing I have running is
McAfee AV. About twice a day, particularly when I am reading a lot of
emails, opening and closing IE windows, or looking at documents, the system
will stop responding to mouse clicks for anywhere up to a couple of minutes.
The mouse pointer moves around fine. If I C-A-D to bring up the Task
Manager, and look at the tasks, the system is only 2 to 5% busy. The busy
tasks are usually explorer, taskmgr, and of course System Idle Process.
There is generally tons of Available Physical Memory indicated in Task
Manager -- hundreds of MB. On the laptop, the fan goes to full speed during
the hang. I don't keep lots of windows open at one time -- a max of maybe
five or six.
I know it's doing something during the hang, as the performance numbers
fluctuate. Eventually, the system returns to normal and I can get back to
work. I haven't been able to isolate a single specific offending act which
causes the problem -- it's not just Internet related, for example. I don't
use external servers or Exchange, and the hang is not taking place during
the background checking of email. Since the problem happens on my laptop
regardless of whether I am using the network at the office, my home DSL
network, or even working offline, I don't think it's a network issue. I
have a clean PC with no viruses or spyware -- I am a bit of an expert on
these so for the sake of argument take my word on this point.
This hang problem has affected both my systems from day one, and has not
improved or worsened across the various service packs and hot fixes which
have been applied.
My assumption has been that this is XP doing memory garbage collection.
Anybody have an opinion? Any suggestions would be appreciated, as this hang
has happened, for instance, during PowerPoint presentations and while I was
following along in Excel spreadsheets in conference calls.
Thanks,
Gary